• Conquer
    My subliminal message detector
    infiltrates the conscious
    string of DVI wires you've pulled from my lips--
    insidious images of my stage the last time
    you strutted your stuff with subtle steps across it,
    like the illusion of scarves from a magician's sleeve.
    The only thing is-- you're not as successful in awing me
    as he usually is with his susceptible audience.

    You're setting off my smoke alarms, blaring
    in my brain to the thrum of a heart
    beating wildly in the midst of chaos. Now I've got an
    SYS (Save Your Soul)
    on my hands, because my heart is sizzling.
    But you're still behind that magician.
    He's setting off cheers and screams at his show--
    louder than the crackle of a thousand Optical wires,
    popping against my cerebellum and warming it
    just enough to fuel his tugging.

    I'll give you one, thing, though: You're good
    with stealthy entrances-- showing up
    when least wanted and least needed, always
    finding ways to rub my nerves raw
    with the warming friction of your hands,
    like the sensual way in which your electricity flows
    through the battered wire veins circulating in my body.

    You're always breaking things
    I never knew you had access cards to-- This time
    you must have confounded my security system,
    (I always knew those wires could never get
    thick enough to keep you from cutting them to pieces),
    or found a back door someone else left unlocked.

    You are nostalgic nightmares
    as you enter my mind's last chambers-- seeping
    through my fortress and lacing your spidery fingers
    into my screaming subconscious to create
    a prickling irritation at the back of my neck.
    Now that you're in, you are a tempting source,
    an overwhelming urge to submerge myself
    in your unwelcome presence. I think
    you took your wire cutters and destroyed the
    part of me that hated you.

    Maybe it's just that my walls were more like teflon
    than the steel bricks double stuffed with cement
    that I thought they were, because the closer you get
    to where I've retreated, the more I begin
    to familiarize myself with the inside of my eyelids
    as your lullaby slips through the spaces in my
    barbed wire eyes. Maybe you're more like the magician
    than I first gave you credit for-- just a little slower
    and a lot closer than he'll ever be.

    Now all I can do is point to the white sheet
    tied loosely around my waist
    and hope that it doesn't hurt too much
    when you pull it from me.
    Surrender
    is worth your pleasantries.